What In The World Is Going On?

A Global Intelligence Briefing For CEOs: This is a transcript of a speech given Feb 27 and 28 last year to a large conference of American CEOs in Seattle. The startling message that is hitting home with me is that the major clashes and consequences of what he's describing aren't way off in the future. They're relatively near-term; still within my lifetime! What in the World is going on?

Weblogs Go Corporate

Boeing commercial airplanes Vice President Randy Baseler is doing it. So are Sun Microsystems President Jonathan Schwartz, General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz and Edelman Chief Executive Richard Edelman.

So what are they doing? They are Blogging. The link under the above paragraph is a great story on how the Corporate big wigs are now bloggers and as a result, marketing their company is becoming easier because people are connecting with the individual and not the corporate marketing machine.

Let's face it, Blogs are not going away and in fact what I'm seeing is an escalation of how many ways blogs can be used. One of those ways is the Business Blog.

Law Blogs

I came across a very professional and clean looking Legal Profession blog and I had to share this with my readers. What intrigued me is how they have created a sharing, 'Think Tank', community of lawyers speaking on many topics that has grown from Canada to include lawyers in the United States. Lawyers know better than most that information is power. The knowledge share network created is powerful and it is an example of where I would like to see my blog grow. I want more Entrepreneurs sharing their Best Practices, Mentoring Advice and Sales Techniques for all Entrepreneurs to benefit from which will help the economy in the end. After all, without the Entrepreneur, we would not have employment opportunities created for every one else.

The Law Blog can be found under this post title and originates from Vancouver Canada.

Top 10 Riskiest Start Up Businesses

Evan Carmichael's Blog recently discussed the Top 10 Riskiest Businesses to start (see his link under this post title):

Trucking, Money Services, Auto Repair, Personal Services, Food Stores, Transportation, Apparel Stores, Restaurants & Bars, Communications and, Travel Agencies & Tour Operators

Evan provides convincing evidence on his reasons for consideration on why these 10 businesses make his Top 10 list. However, what they all share in common are the High Overhead Costs, Low Profit Margins and Online Competition eroding their respective market share. Let's face it, the Top 2 items of worry on a business owners mind everyday is; How to Increase the Money coming into their business and How to Decrease the amount of Money going out of their business. So why would you get into any business that is inherently suffering from these concerns.

You may or may not agree with Michael on any of the businesses on his list but, you should at least ask yourself before getting into a business; will this business have the opportunity to grow each year for the next 5 years? If the answer is yes then great. If the answer is no, because you will be fighting high overhead costs, low profit margins and growing competition (don't forget the online competition because the internet is the new economic vehicle for marketing and advertising) then you should think twice before investing your hard earned money. When you look at the higher failure rates in start ups versus franchises the answer might be because the entrepreneur didn't do their homework before starting the business.

Any business, start up or franchise, comes with an element of risk. But you can limit your risk by looking at the landscape, surveying the obstacles and planning accordingly or, decide on a different business.